More new music from The Flaming Lips out in April — buried in an edible gummy skull

At this point in The Flaming Lips’ career, not much that Wayne Coyne does comes as a huge shock. We told you about the slightly classist, 12-part “Two Blobs Fucking” (happy Valentine’s Day!) in February, which sure, was weird and innovative but not quite mind-shattering (ruin the experience over at the Chocolate Grinder). They announced forthcoming work with Neon Indian (a four-track 12-inch, coming soon), and recently, potential collaborations with James Murphy, Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page — impressive, but in the Flaming Lips’ world, something Coyne can still be pretty blasé about. The Flaming Lips’ new, particularly bizarre offering come April? A “life-sized human skull completely made out of edible gummy bear stuff. It also has a gummy brain inside of it and, inside of that, there’s a USB flash drive that has three new songs on it” (via Pitchfork). Now that’s something.

I remember spilling coffee on my flash drive in college and losing a paper; we can assume that, nice guy that Wayne Coyne is, this gummy encasing won’t have the same effect on the music inside. Coyne explained how they decided to develop such “nervous” packaging: “We found this guy in Raleigh, North Carolina, who makes all these gummy bear things — even adult toys. I don’t know if he’s making giant dicks and pussies out of gummy bears, but we called him and said, ‘Hey, would you want to make a life-size human skull with a brain in it?’” Not something you hear every day.

A suggestion for The Flaming Lips: a discount package of the gummy skull plus a skull of Dan Aykroyd’s crystal vodka?

Pssst — don’t forget about Coyne’s promise of new songs every month of this year, or the retrospective box set, slated for release on Record Store Day!

There’s a new entry in the ongoing Chronicles of Awesomeness that documents Quintron’s life. The New Orleans-based musician/Drum Buddy inventor/friend of all puppets presents us with Sucre du Sauvage, a new album coming out via Goner Records on April 12. Recorded from January 29 through May 2 of last year at the New Orleans Museum of Art, the album was created as part of an exhibit entitled “Parallel Universe — Quintron and Miss Pussycat Live in City Park.” Which makes sense. I mean, don’t they live in the City Park inside each and every one of us?

Sucre du Sauvage is the result of field recordings made by Quintron as he strolled through New Orleans City Park, where the museum abides, music recorded at the museum, and the backing vocals, handclaps, and sound effects provided by whichever museum-goers happened to be around at the time. It’s a two-part album, with Part 1 leaning more toward the usual Quintron hijinks, with a dash of vibraphone, Drum Buddy, Miss Pussycat’s vocals, and field recordings. Part 2 is nothing but field recordings!!! Field recordings gone wild. According to Quintron himself, “There was no post-production of overdubs. When the exhibit closed, the album was finished.” One of a kind, this album — kinda like Quintron himself.

What up, yo? I’m sure that you’ve heard that Battles have a new album coming out, right? It’s called Gloss Drop (TMT News), it’s coming out on Warp, and I’m sure that it’ll end up on all sorts of end-of-the-year lists and that I’ll sleep with it tightly clutched to my chest at night.

I’m sure that you’ve also heard that Battles are curating/playing at ATP’s Nightmare Before Christmas (TMT News)? I’m sure at this point you’re wondering: “Why did I click this link? Isn’t there any new news?”

YES! Battles have announced that they will be going on a tour of the US and Europe at intimate venues so that the band has an easier chance at picking out the hot girls. What this “intimate venues” thing also means is that you’d better buy your tickets now, cowboy, cuz they’re going quick! These new dates are in addition to the bevy of already announced dates at festivals around the world, so if you prefer grassy and sunny to dark and stuffy then these shows are for you!

Drag City vets The High Llamas are set to return on April 19 with their first LP since 2007’s lovely Can Cladders (TMT Review). The new LP Talahomi Way — the band’s 9th overall — is sure to accentuate the quartet’s folk-inspired pop leanings and is destined to permeate sunny gatherings this spring and/or summer. The band has scheduled several UK dates to coincide with the new LP’s European release a week earlier and will kick things off on May 5 in Brighton.

Mark McGuire makes me feel like a lazy bum — which I am for the most part, but for real, Mark, chill out a little bit, quit making the rest of us feel so bad about our lack of productivity. The guy is a couple years my junior and has already released a slew of CD-Rs and tapes to measure up to almost a lifetime’s worth of musical accomplishment. I, for one, have given up on trying to keep up with all the musical fuzz he’s putting out there, because I’m lazy. Luckily for me (and my fellow lazy asses), Emeralds’ Mark McGuire will be releasing a compilation album comprised of rare and hard-to-find tracks from cassette and CD-R releases throughout the past few years.

A Young Person’s Guide to Mark McGuire will be released by Editions Mego on May 10 and was compiled by the label’s frontman Peter “Pita” Rehberg. As an added bonus to you drone nerds out there, Stephen O’Malley of Sunn O))) fame will be doing the design and layout duties for the release. With all that said, I’m now going to consider doing something worthwhile with my life, but probably won’t.

A Young Person’s Guide to Mark Mcguire tracklist:

Disc 1:

01. Dream Team (from 2008 Dream Team CD-R on Wagon)
02. The Marfa Lights (from 2009 A Pocket Full of Rain 2xCS/CD-R on Pizza Night/Wagon)
03. Clague Woods (from 2007 Patterns of Development CD-R on Wagon)
04. Slipstreams (from 2007 Patterns of Development CD-R on Wagon)
05. Stranger Than Paradise (from 2009 Stranger Than Paradise business-card CD-R on Everybody Else Has a Record Label, So Why Can’t I?)
06. Flight (from 2007 Patterns of Development CD-R on Wagon)
07. Ghosts Around the Tree (from 2007 Patterns of Development CD-R on Wagon)
08. The Path Lined with Colorful Stones (from 2008 Light Movement 2xCS/CD-R on Wagon)
09. The Wind on the Winding Road, pt. 2 (from 2008/2009 Open Chords CS/CD-R on Pizza Night/High Spirits)

Like a modern day Power Rangers/Chronicles of Narnia/other-thing-where-people/lions-join-forces-to-do-stuff, ATP has announced that the trifecta of Battles, Les Savy Fav, and Caribou are teaming up to curate the annual Nightmare Before Christmas festival in Minehead, England. Wrap your mind around this: each band gets to curate their own day.

The festival runs from December 9-11, 2011, and Les Savy Fav get first dibs on Friday, Battles get Saturday, and Caribou takes Sunday, the day everyone’s hungover. (Or if you’re me, that day is today. Ugh.) Like every year, ATP’s Nightmare goes down at the Butlin’s resort. The lineup this time around includes 45 musical acts, and although details are scant, it promises to be a diverse weekend full of seaside charm, delightful performances and, of course, teamwork. It’s like a living Successories poster over there at ATP HQ. Tickets are on sale as of yesterday through ATPfestival.com.